


You Better Watch Out

by FourFaces



Series: Adventure Zone Cycles [4]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Candlenights, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 13:35:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17142707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FourFaces/pseuds/FourFaces
Summary: The IPRE crew spends their first proper Candlenights together during the Stolen Century.  Misunderstandings happen. Santa is terrifying.





	You Better Watch Out

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't get this idea out of my head. Happy Candlelights!

It wasn't until the fifth cycle that everyone felt safe enough to fall into the old routines of home.

  
Lucretia was able to write more than just logs of the day to day life on the ship. Davenport was able to return to the book he had started the night before they left their home. Merle was able to tend to his growing collection of alien plants.

  
Best of all, the fifth cycle was the first one with seasons that reminded them of home.  With this came winter and most of the crew's favorite holiday - Candlenights. Magnus had chopped down a bush and dragged it into the ship, without too much protest from Davenport, and Merle tasked Barry with helping him create some decorations, looking at Barry in confusion when he suggested they maybe leave the Santa Claus effigy out of their celebrations for the time being. Merle won out, with the support of Lucretia, Davenport, and Magnus, and so they set about decorating the ship.  

The twins were oddly absent, but the few times they emerged from their wintery slumbers, they were much nicer than they had been the previous four cycles.

  
When Merle joked that they were trying to get on Santa's good side,  they would simply nod and quickly change the subject. Only Barry recognized the sense of unease from them.

  
The day before Candlenights, the crew was mostly snug in their cabins, enjoying the climate control of the ship as a storm raged outside.

  
Taako was the first to emerge, wiping away the sleep from his eyes as he took a break from his winter hibernation. He entered the common room and blinked taking in his surroundings. Lights, garlands, a Candlenights Bush. A makeshift fireplace.

  
Santa.

  
Taako's eyes widened in terror as he stared at the effigy of Santa in the corner of the room.

  
“LULU!” Taako screamed. “Oh Gods, Lulu! Come quick!”

  
Lup scrambled out of their shared room in alarm, ready to take on whoever was hurting her precious brother. She reached the room and froze.

  
“What in the fresh hell?!” she yelled. “Who the fuck put a Santa in here?”

  
Barry was the first to emerge, paling when he saw the terrified twins.

  
“Oh Gods,  I am so sorry Lup - we - I tried to get them to rethink it -”

  
“Lulu, I thought we were good but we weren't good enough!” Taako sobbed as Lup held onto him, protectively.

  
“What the hell’s going on?” Merle complained as he rushed into the living room.

  
“Why the fuck would you put a Santa in here?” Lup cried out.

  
“We aren't really a hundred yet!” Taako readily confessed. “We lied on our applications! We're only eighty-eight!”

  
“It's ok, Koko,” Lup soothed, partially for herself.  “Santa is just a scary story! We never got taken and we won't get taken! I promise!”

  
Lucretia and Davenport rushed in next and took in the scene.

  
“Um …” Davenport started

  
“Uh, yeah,” Barry started. “So, I was trying to tell you guys when we were decorating but Santa … he’s not really a joyous symbol for elves. He's more of a  boogey man for elven children,” Barry started.

  
“When we're young, we're told that we have to be good because every Candlenights, Santa comes looking for naughty young elves to steal and force to spend their childhood working on toys for other creatures,” Lup continued. “Since our childhoods technically end at one hundred years …”

  
“Twelve years, Lulu! What if we don't get to be in the same workshop? I can't be away from you for that long!”

  
“I stopped believing in Santa when we were fifty,” Lup explained. “Greg Fucking Grimaldis didn't get stolen after he stole my fifteen dollars during elf practice so I knew that Santa couldn't be real-”

  
“But remember our cousin, Burrgor? He was sixty and then one Candlenights, he just vanished!” Taako whimpered.

  
“Yeah, but he also got caught in a Ponzi scheme, Koko, so he may have just disappeared to avoid getting in trouble,” Lup soothed, shielding Taako's eyes from the monster in the corner of the room. “Can someone please get that fucking thing out of here, please? You may as well have put a spider in Magnus’ room -”

  
“What?!” Magnus' voice rang out from the doorway.  “Spider?!”

  
“Gods …” Davenport mumbled as he pinched the bridge of his nose.  “Ok, we'll get rid of the Santa … How did none of this come up when we were putting together crew profiles?”

  
“I tried to say something,” Barry grumbled under his breath.

  
As the Santa was chopped up and placed in the fireplace to be torched by Lup, Lucretia hastily noted down this new knowledge about elven culture. It would be a few more cycles before a replacement for Santa would be created for their Candlenights traditions, and many, many more cycles until Lucretia had to use this knowledge again on a new world, but for the fifth cycle, the crew simply gathered around the warm, acrid glow of the burning Santa and celebrated as friends.

 

 


End file.
